All posts tagged Hudson’s Bay Co.

BlackBerry Ltd. unveils its latest device, the Classic, later Wednesday. The product, which will sport a QWERTY keyboard, is meant to appeal to the smartphone company’s traditional customers.

Husky Energy Inc. set a 2015 capital-spending budget of C$3.4 billion, down about 33% from this year’s levels. The integrated energy company left its dividend intact. However, smaller Canadian producer Penn West Petroleum Ltd. cut expected spending and slashed its dividend. The companies, like most in the sector, are reeling from lower oil prices. Read More »

Canadian energy company Talisman Energy Inc. said late Monday that it had been approached by “a number of parties,” including Spain’s Repsol SA, regarding various unspecified transactions. Back in July, Talisman and Repsol discussed possible transactions, though those talks later stalled.

Hudson’s Bay Co.’s fiscal third-quarter results got a big boost from last year’s acquisition of Saks Inc. It reported a much smaller loss and said sales almost doubled to C$1.91 billion. The big retailer also said it continues to make progress in surfacing value from its real-estate portfolio. Read More »

Fort Hood shooting reopens old wounds. An active-duty soldier is believed to have killed three fellow soldiers and injured 16 others at the Texas army base that was the site of a deadly shooting rampage in 2009.

Is Canada thwarting U.S. efforts to fight the use of hillbilly heroin? Two U.S. senators urged Canada’s health minister to stop the production in Canada of a form of oxycodone that has been flowing south of the border. Canada had promised to look at outlawing a form of the prescription drug, marketed as OxyContin, which is easy to crush, dissolve, inject or snort. So far it has not taken action, however. Read More »

Parent company Hudson’s Bay Co., which liquidated the Canadian discount retailer shortly after it sold most of the banner’s leases to Target Corp. back in 2011, is reopening a Zellers store in Ottawa on Thursday.

Hudson’s Bay confirmed the somewhat surprising move, which was first reported by CTV News, but said it isn’t the start of a new push into deep discounting. Hudson’s Bay, which acquired high-end U.S. retailer Saks Fifth Avenue last year for $2.9 billion, also operates the Lord & Taylor and Hudson’s Bay department-store chains and a Canadian home-products chain called Home Outfitters. Read More »

Will Keystone XL pass the climate-change smell tests? The U.S. State Department is expected to release a hotly anticipated environmental review on TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline project Friday. Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. thinks the report will bolster the case for the pipeline.

Encana Corp. said it will focus the majority of its planned C$2.4 billion to C$2.5 billion capital investment in 2014 on five oil and liquids-rich assets as it works towards achieving its goal of deriving about 75% of its cash flow from oil and natural gas liquids by 2017. The company expects overall production to be unchanged from last year despite a 10% drop in planned spending, though liquids production alone is expected to grow by 30%.

Husky Energy Inc. said it plans capital spending of about C$4.8 billion in 2014, a bit less than in 2013. The integrated oil and gas company said it’s track for substantial production growth next year, helped by the start of production from the Liwan Gas Project in the South China Sea. Output is expected to be in the range of 330,000 to 355,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, compared to an estimated 312,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2013.

Bank of Nova Scotia is one of three banks vying to acquire Chile’s CorpBanca SA, according to people close to the talks. The Canadian bank has substantial Latin American operations. Separately, Scotiabank said it reached a cooperation agreement with Bank of Beijing to help individuals moving to Canada begin their financial transition before they leave China. The deal enables them to open a Scotiabank bank account and apply for a credit card in Bank of Beijing locations while still in China.

Hudson’s Bay Co. said overall retail sales for the fiscal third quarter ended Nov. 2 rose 5.8% from a year earlier. Same-store sales rose 5.7%, reflecting a 6.4% jump at Hudson’s Bay and a 1.6% increase at Lord & Taylor. The retailer posted a hefty loss due to costs related to its acquisition of U.S. retailer Saks Inc. On a normalized or adjusted basis, it said it earned 7 Canadian cents a share in the quarter versus breakeven results a year earlier. Read More »

Sears Canada Inc. is freeing up some prime retail space – disappointing news for the ailing Canadian retailer, but perhaps encouraging news for others as competition in the country’s retail landscape continues to heat up.

Sears Canada said Tuesday it’s selling the leases on five of its most tantalizing locations, including its flagship at Toronto’s Eaton Centre, for 400 million Canadian dollars ($383 million), as the retailer lightens its ballast in a bid to stay afloat.

The news was announced premarket, just as its struggling U.S.-based parent, Sears Holding Corp., said it was considering parting ways with its well-known Land End brand. Sears Holding owns a 51% stake in the Toronto-based Sears Canada.

Sears Canada is in the midst of a three-year turnaround plan, and just a month ago was shaken by the surprise departure of Chief Executive Calvin McDonald. Many have questioned whether Sears Canada, which has seen a string of negative same-store sales, can hold its own against a barrage of new and expanding rivals. Read More »

Jean Coutu Group Inc. posted a big jump in earnings for the fiscal second quarter due to a gain on the sale of Rite Aid Corp. shares. It earned 99 Canadian cents a share, up from 23 Canadian cents a share a year earlier. The pharmacy operator also announced a plan to distribute up to C$502 million to its shareholders via a share repurchase and a special dividend.

Wi-LAN Inc. said it and BlackBerry Ltd. have reached a deal to dismiss all pending patent litigation between them. It didn’t disclose specific financial terms, but said that, as part of the agreement, BlackBerry has obtained a license to certain patents in suit in Florida. As a result, all litigation between the companies in Florida will be dismissed with prejudice. Wi-LAN said the agreement calls for the dismissal, without prejudice, of all litigation between the companies in Texas.

A garment-factory fire in Bangladesh killed at least 10 people Tuesday. The Aswad Composite Mills Ltd. factory has recently produced clothes for Western retailers including Loblaw Cos. and Hudson’s Bay Co., according to online shipping databases. Hudson’s Bay said it last received a delivery from the factory in April and subsequently decided it would no longer place orders with the factory. Loblaw said it didn’t place any orders with the factory and was investigating documents that suggest unauthorized production, such as subcontracting without prior approval. Read More »

With its planned purchase of Saks Inc., Toronto-based Hudson’s Bay Co. wants to do something that’s long been a challenge: Convince Canadian luxury consumers to shop in Canada rather than the U.S.

Hudson’s Bay, which agreed in late July to buy Saks for around $2.4 billion, said Thursday it has plans to open up to seven full-line Saks Fifth Avenue stores north of the border.

The retailer’s chief executive, Richard Baker, said he expects those stores, along with planned stores from upscale department-store retailer Nordstrom Inc., to keep affluent Canadians customers from crossing into the U.S. for their shopping sprees. Read More »

Retailer Saks Inc. agreed to be bought by Hudson’s Bay Co. for $2.4 billion, in an all-cash deal that is probably as much about high-end real estate as luxury clothes.

Fracking in the Arctic, on the ocean floor: Scientists in Japan and the U.S. say they are moving closer to tapping a new source of energy. They are eying methane hydrate, a crystalline form of natural gas found in Arctic permafrost and at the bottom of oceans.

Canadian real return bond investors, be on alert. While the goal of central bankers around the globe will be to return inflation to target, recent research shows Canada’s inflation path may take a much more circuitous route than investors currently appreciate, economist Sheryl King writes in The Globe and Mail. Read More »

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Canada Real Time provides insight and analysis into what’s making news in Canada, a country punching above its weight on the world stage thanks to its vast resources and strong banking sector. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, we take a look at developments in fields ranging from business to politics to culture. You can contact the editors at canadaeditors@dowjones.com